ADDY GOES TO SOUTH AFRICA

To Meet The Penguins



Addy Goes To South Africa

My trip to South Africa was impromptu. I have always dreamed of going to South Africa but the opportunity never came. Truthfully ‘the money’ never came. So when it came time for the CNN M-net Africa Journalist awards, I was all over it like white on rice. Somehow I forgot about it until like two weekends ago. Now it was interesting how I ended up with a ticket. As usual things are never straight forward in Nigeria. Apparently and because I book for a flight and hotel package, I had to pay in dollars. Now please explain to me why a company is transacting business with a foreign currency. I even went to the bank to get the dollars but they required me to produce the ticket first. A rock and a hard place, you say. The bank didn’t budge and the part that annoyed me was that the banker was actually encouraging me to use the black market. I would like to think that the finance houses are supposed to discourage patronizing the black market, but this bank manager was about to give me a phone number to one of the mallams at Eko Hotel so that I could change naira to dollars. Eventually I had to go back to the airline office and there they provided me with the number for a mallam after ‘asking’ for the manager did not work.
The plane ride was rather long. I stopped in Jo’burg first and then went of to Capetown. First of all can I say that the two airports are ‘airports’, magnificent edifices welcoming you to warm smiles and ‘welcome to south Africa sisi.’ Then the driver booked for picked me up and we headed for the hotel. Man if you have not been to Cape Town, you should take the trip on your next vacation and do the whole tourist thing. Anyways the first thing I did after checking in to the hotel was to find the mall. The hotel shuttle took me to the Waterfront Mall. The place is huge. I went bananas...finally, a real mall with Chinese food in the food court. I didn’t bring too much money for shopping so I just did the window shopping and bought some make-up. Since I didn’t know anybody there, I decided to be the friendly person that I am and walk up to some random people. I spotted two chiquely dressed girls who were looking at the mall guide and in the most southern American accent I said, ‘Now ya’ll ladies look like you know where to shop for nice clothes.’ They laughed and we started chatting and there I was in the southern most tip of Africa with my new South African friends. Anyways I did some shopping and then the whole tourist thing. I went to the Khayelitsha, Langa and Guguletu Townships, the ‘bougie’ area of Camps Bay where I would like to live ‘WHEN’ I move to Cape Town, and I did the Nature explorer thing and visited Cape Good Hope to see the Light House and the mountain peaks and of course the PENGUINS (oddly enough I kept on imagining them being served fried with a plate of jollof rice and plantains.). Speaking of which, I had PUMBA for lunch. No not the Warthog’s backside, but the rib. Unfortunately I left my camera on my dresser so I don’t have the picture, but I can tell you it tasted like regular ‘ribs’ from TGI-Fridays.


VISIT AGAIN FOR PICTURES OF MY SOUTH AFRICA TRIP coming soon